Scott-Heron’s best known song was 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.' |
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Though the ugliness of ghetto life was a frequent topic, the music itself was not a downer.

His recordings with Jackson were a combination of jazz, funk, dance music and rap before anyone knew what rap was, making the music just about impossible to characterize and even harder to sell. “If anything proves how serious Scott-Heron has become,” noted critic Robert Christgau wrote in a 1976 record review, “it’s the infectious groove running through all four sides of this concert album. You’ve heard of selling out? This is selling in.”

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Scott-Heron and Jackson got a boost in the mid-1970s when Clive Davis made them the first signing for his new major-label-to-be, Arista. The signing coincided with the release of a Flying Dutchman compilation, which gave “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” more attention than it had ever received before — the song even found its way onto some garden-variety FM stations for a while.

Still, the music was not terribly commercial and never reached a vast audience. Their 1974 Arista debut, hopefully titled “The First Minute of a New Day,” complete with the anti-nuclear epic “We Almost Lost Detroit,” peaked at No. 30 and beat a hasty retreat down the charts. “From South Africa to South Carolina” in 1975 did less well, despite introducing “Johannesburg,” a song that was soon to be chanted by many people attending anti-apartheid rallies and marches over the next years.

Scott-Heron pressed on after Jackson left in the late 1970s, becoming a prominent anti-nuclear activist and continuing to record for Arista until he was dropped by the label in 1985. He also composed and sang “Let Me See Your I.D.” for “Sun City,” a 1985 anti-apartheid album that featured everyone from Miles Davis to Bonnie Raitt to Bruce Springsteen to Joey Ramone.

After a long period of relative inactivity — drug and legal problems dominated his life for years — he returned to performing in 2007 and began to record again. In his later years, superstar Kanye West cited him as an influence.

“We do what we do and how we do because of you,” Public Enemy’s Chuck D tweeted Friday.

According to The Associated Press, Scott-Heron died in a New York City hospital after returning home for a European trip during he which he had become ill.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article mistakenly said he had passed away Thursday. It was Friday.